


Rabbit-hearted

by tsukara



Category: Bleach
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Growing Up, Headcanon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-20
Updated: 2011-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukara/pseuds/tsukara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of Rukia's days growing up in one of the rougher districts of the Rukongai, with lasting effects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rabbit-hearted

Small feet slapped against the hard-packed dirt as she outran her pursuers, alone today, stolen bundle clutched tightly in her hand. A turn, another skidding turn into an even darker alley and--there! Crates, barred window and low-hanging eave formed just enough of a ladder for her to scramble up to the roof, bare feet chinking over the loose roof tiles now.

Another leap, the crunch of breaking wood under her foot and then she was scrambling up, over the peak of the roof, down the other side and--hup--over to the next.

After another building Rukia slithered down the rough tiles to land with a small thump, heart racing, breathing hard, though she tried her best to slow it, crouching next to a pile of rubbish she hoped would hide her, counting and analyzing her escape routes just in case it didn't.

She waited. Voices, indistinct, outside of one end of the alley, but no shouts. A woman's high, fluting giggle. Footsteps, but those told her little.

"There!"

Rukia didn't wait for the pursuing shouts, the thud and thump of adult footsteps after her, she simply ran the other way, dodging a pair of outstretching arms at the other end, sprinting around a corner, another corner. Seeing dark green up ahead, Rukia put on an extra burst of speed she had no idea she still had in her and crashed into the undergrowth of the wild little patch of woods between this district and, she assumed, the next.

Footsteps muffled over the rotted mess of dirt and dead leaves, her bare legs whipped by ferns and other things with thorns, Rukia ran. But she couldn't outrun her pursuers, especially in this and so, with the footsteps just on the edge of hearing, Rukia spotted a likely tree, all twisted branches and thick leaf cover, and shimmied up it, crouching up small as possible, ready to leap from it and take off again at a moment's notice, if she had to.

Her heart pounded. She breathed. The mens footsteps crashed closer to her. She held her breath for fear of being heard.

"It's scarpered into here, now we're never gonna find that little piece of trash." The first, short and loud, slightly inobservant.

The leader of the two, taller, a sneering face, answered only with a sound Rukia readily identified as a slap. "Dammit, he took my goods, d'ya get that? Fresh veg, at that!"

"But," snivelled the second again. "Look at this place, we aint' gonnna find even a trace of 'im in here."

Night was beginning to fall, judging by the little bits of light that spotted through the tops of the trees beyond her, and to her right, where they gave way for the intrusion of a bamboo grove.

She breathed shallowly, her lungs screaming for more air, hoping that they'd give up the chase since she'd fled into here. Too hard, too dangerous for them, there were snakes and who knew what else in this parts.

With a wordless snarl the taller of the pair slapped his companion over the head again and, with stomping, angry feet, began his crashing way back out into this district's excuse for civilization.

Rukia breathed again, only once the footsteps had gone entirely, gasping for air as she crawled down the tree, limbs shaking, her prize still held tightly to her. At the base, she collapsed, sitting for a little while, willing the air to come more quickly, her heart to stop racing and get out of her throat, her limbs to stop trembling. And, due to long experience at this sort of thing, it wasn't long before she could breathe again, could move without her muscles seizing in cramps.

But still, better to wait just a little longer, until she was sure they were gone. On alert still, Rukia stretched out her long, spindly legs, dirt and mud and gods knew what else spattered over her calves, the bottom of the kimono she should think about washing again soon. Setting the small bundle she'd carried all this way in her lap--cucumbers, small and green like a shock, perfect oblongs--and leaned back on her arms.

The ground gave way under one of her hands. She reacted quickly, not shrieking, pulling the weight off, whipping around to see what was there in the new hole in the earth, her heart racing again. There were snakes in here, she remembered. They could kill you with one bite, she knew that too. She remembered the ugly, bloated face of Jin, last summer, when he'd been bit by one in the ankle and they didn't know what to do.

Jewel-bright eyes gleaming had her heart leaping into her throat, but she couldn't make herself move. It was only when the dust cleared a little more and the light suffusing the illuminated the dark depression did she realize what it was.

"Rabbit?" She breathed the question, barely above a whisper. She'd seen them before, both as streaks of dark and dapple against the ground, or mangy, half-dead creatures being sold by an unscrupulous merchant lucky enough to capture one. The boys had tried hunting them before, mostly getting the slightly slower and stupider squirrels and mice instead.

The rabbit was squished up against the back of the nest, under an overhanging root, ears flat and teeth bared. Rukia stared back at it for a few seconds before realizing that, among the soft old grasses and leaves and chips the rabbit had collected were several smaller balls of fluff, dark brown like the bigger rabbit, but tinier, more delicate.

Baby rabbits, Rukia realized with a start. They looked so soft, Rukia wanted to touch them. Shifting around to her knees, she reached out, intending to pet them. With a warning grunt, the mother rabbit lunged out and bit into Rukia's hand.

Rukia froze, but didn't cry out, knowing it would attract attention. It hurt, yes, but it wasn't terrible, even though she knew it was drawing blood. With her other hand, she dared to give the rabbit a quick, light stroke over its head and body, shocked by how soft it was, how much softer the tiny kits must be.

But the bite where the grown rabbit stubbornly hung on was hurting more and more. Rukia knew the mother had only been protecting her babies and so, gently, she eased her injured hand away. The mother rabbit released it and put herself bodily in front of her kits again, threatening this big, strange creature that had uncovered them.

Rukia backed off and, using her good hand, she shuffled some of the undergrowth and a big dead fern leaf aroud the nest and overhanging root, leaving space for the rabbits underneath. As a final peace offering, she pulled open the bundle she had protected all this time, leaving a small cucumber not too far away from where the rabbits were hidden. She didn't want another to find them as she had, wanted them to be safe.

Still bleeding a little, she retied the bundle and set off, finding a plant she knew by sight and touch and feel, though she couldn't have told you the name of it, wrapping a big leaf around the not-that-bad wound the mother had given her, and trotting back to the dusty streets to find her way back to the big, run-down shack she and the others were around for the night. Around her the streets began to settle into their nighttime immorality, the sun setting behind her, the forest coming alive with its own creatures of the night.

She shared the cucumbers she had won with everyone and didn't tell anyone about the rabbit or how she had gotten that weird wound on her hand, even when Renji wheedled her, eating her bright green cucumbers in happy silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: So it turns out that rabbits native to (most of) Japan? Not actually rabbits! /The More You Know~/ It's actually hares that are native to most of the islands. But since the terminology usually refers to rabbits, I went with rabbit terminology and hare behavior... mostly. Lagomorph-lovers are welcome to nitpick away on that though, haha.


End file.
